Post by Dave on Oct 16, 2018 18:49:28 GMT
Devils Pit,The History & My Memories 16th October 2018
Today was all about reliving some childhood memories and what a childhood it was. Back then as kids we were free to roam miles in search of fun and adventure. Yes we might have done some crazy and often dangerous things, but we lived to tell the tale.
A childhood far richer than the ones today’s children have as they spend much of it playing games on tablets and not really knowing the fun playing in a wood can have. I spent a lot of my childhood playing in Milber Woods in Newton Abbot, but I also loved visiting Bradley Woods.
Hidden in Bradley woods was a place the locals called Devils Pit, a large steep-sided pit in the south side of the valley of the River Lemon, It is probably a collapsed limestone cavern and although it is about 12 metres deep and some 50 metres across at its widest, it is invisible from the river and the main path on the other side.
I am not sure why it is known as Devils Pit as its real name is Puritan's Pit, but not everyone knew that back then. Puritan's Pit owes its notability to Willam Yeo, a Presbyterian clergyman who was installed as Rector of Wolborough in 1648 by Oliver Cromwell. Yeo was reportedly very assiduous in his duties and would walk around the town after Sunday service with a constable, to ensure that the sabbath was kept holy. After 14 years, however he was deprived of his living for refusing to acknowledge the post-Restoration Act of Uniformity.
In the years that followed, Yeo and his supporters met in Puritan's Pit by night to worship. At this time he was effectively an outlaw as can be seen from an order of sessions that was made in 1683 offering a reward of 40 shillings to anyone who apprehended a dissenting minister. The Act of Toleration 1689 brought this episode to a close, and Yeo's house was certified to be used as a place of worship.
It was always claimed that on Halloweens Night a large group of witches held a service at midnight at the pit. When I was seventeen years old a group of us entered the very dark wood at around 11.30pm on Halloweens night to see if this was true. As there were about ten of us and we all had a torch with us, we headed for the pit fearless.
But as we got close we saw at least thirty witches all dressed in white robes around the top of the pit and ten lads were then running and screaming like frightened children. Linford Christie would not have been able to keep up with me that evening and I do not think I have ever run that fast again.
After meeting a friend for breakfast In Newton Abbot this morning I drove to a small road opposite the Bradley Manor Lodge on the Totnes Road just outside of the town. I walked down the driveway and over the bridge over the River Lemon.
I turned left and kept close to the river as I knew hallway around the large meadow was a footbridge over the river into the main woods. Over the bridge I turned right and soon found some steps that were not there when I was last there and so took them instead of hugging the bank of the river. This new way took me to the top of Devils Pit; the way I used to go took me to the river side of it. I then soon found out that even here health and safety had gone mad as the whole pit was fenced off, but that was not going to stop me.
One of the posts had been pulled up and this left me just enough room to get under the fence and enter the pit. As I walked down into it a flashback came to me as a fourteen year old when after dating a local girl for a week, I tried to have my first kiss with her in the pit. I did get a smack in the face for my efforts, but the truth of the matter was she was scared half to death being in Devils Pit.
Here I now was at the bottom of the pit and it was just the same as it was all those years ago, sadly photos do not really show what the pit is like when you are in it, but I took some anyway.
Back out of the pit I carried on walking to where a track way comes down from Ogwell. There is another small footbridge here that takes you back over the river. There is also a cottage here that once served drinks and sweets from a window when I was child, but not any longer.
Our school cross county run used to come down that track way and we would all run across the river at that point and not use the footbridge. That is not even possible now as barbed wire has been put there, why?
I walked over the footbridge and turned left through another open meadow and was soon in another part of the wood that eventually comes out by Chercombe Bridge. The River Lemon is always beside you on your left and the whole woods just feel so very old.
Soon on my right I came to the first of two kilns in this section of the wood, this one is just a single kiln. Behind it is a rock face you would more expect to find by a beach and I have some strong memories of this place.
As children we knew a way to climb up by the side of it right to the top where there was an open field. It always terrified me climbing up there and there was no way I was going to have a go at it today.
Back on the main pathway again I soon came to the second kiln, this one is a double and in such very good condition, they sure knew how to build things to last back then. I expect in a few hundred years time, people will be out walking and the kilns will still look like they do today.
A bit further on there is a gate that takes you through someone’s garden, it is a public right of way and if you do find yourself walking here, just open the gate and continue your walk. It is possible to walk to the Holbeam Dam a flood-control reservoir and dam that was built in 1982.
I was one of the guests invited to the opening of the dam as I was a victim of the flood on the 27th December 1979 that flooded the whole of Newton Abbot. My home was close to Bakers Park and I ended up with nearly five foot high water in my home.
The dam now holds up the water if there is too much to flow through the covert under the town, so Newton Abbot should not ever flood again as badly as it did back then. It is hard to believe when walking along the River Lemon while in Bradley Woods, that it would ever be capable of causing the damage it did.
I enjoyed a wonderful afternoon reliving my childhood memories, I also felt I was saying goodbye to this wonderful area as it is unlikely I will walk there again as there are still so many other places I want to visit.
